Edwardian Ladies

The Museum of Vancouver shows an old movie, which is also available on YouTube as “May 1907 – Ride through Victoria and Vancouver, Canada (speed corrected w/ added sound)”. It shows fascinating scenes taken from a moving streetcar, and includes many horse-drawn vehicles, a few early automobiles, and many pedestrians (some jaywalking).

I stopped the movie at the scene above, of Edwardian ladies in big hatas and long skirts crossing in front of the streecar. I rendered the sccene in conté on laid paper (a combination favoured by Georges Seurat in the 1880s). The result seems to capture something of the grainy quality of early movies; even the darkest blacks retain a sparkle of white dots where the texture of the paper shows through.